Inspirational Teachers

  Helen Mirren won the BAFTA Fellowship this year, a lifetime achievement award that honours the work and outstanding achievements of incredible actors, film directors, producers in film and television, screen writers, editors and so on. Dame Mirren then dedicated the award to Mrs Welding, a woman who had been her English teacher at school and the only person that encouraged her to follow her dreams of becoming an actor.

   Due to the hustle and bustle of university, I completely forgot that the BAFTAs were on TV. Sad times. So, I first came across Dame Mirren's moving speech at a Teach First Conference that I attended a few months ago, where I had to talk to trainee teachers about my experiences with the organisation and how I know from my own experiences that Teach First teachers really do make a difference in the lives of the students that they teach. In fact, I never considered teaching until I came across Teach First and now, teaching has become a possibility for me as I want to make a difference, even though that sounds super corny.

  The next time that I came across the speech was at the Oxford University Inspirational Teachers Award ceremony, where the video was played before the host of the event read out a message from Dame Mirren herself, who congratulated the winning teachers and apologised for not being able to make the ceremony. I. Could. Have. Met. Dame. Helen. Mirren. But whatevs. I'm not bothered about that at all...

  Although I was only allowed to nominate one teacher who had inspired me (cheers, Mr B!), there are a few others that have done this as well and this post is to give them some recognition. Why am I doing this, you ask? I find that students in the UK (not all students, mind!) often take teachers for granted, talking back at them and swearing at them in classrooms etc and teaching is often looked down by other professions because some believe that it doesn't pay enough or that teachers 'have it easy' with the 'regular breaks' that they get with school holidays. I personally believe that teachers deserve a lot of respect because they are the ones that form the minds of tomorrow; they encourage these minds, help them to develop their talents and as Dame Mirren mentioned in her speech, teachers often motivate their students to aim for their future careers. Okay, with all this in mind, here are the teachers that have inspired me:

  Thank you Mr N for teaching me to never give up when I was five years old and I was crying because I had failed a test for the first time in my life. Thank you Mr R, who was my amazing singing teacher/ after school tutor for everything (I was a slow kid lol) from when I was five until I left Nigeria aged nine. Mr R put up with how strange I was as a child and made me believe in myself, even though it took me a while to catch up with my sister and the rest of the class. He also encouraged my love of singing, and he was a huge part of the reason why singing was such a big part of my childhood, and who I am today. Mr O was just like Mr R because he tutored me after school as well (I'm not kidding when I say I was a slow kid) and he inspired me to write because he was the first person that I knew to publish a book, showing me that normal people can write too, and that being a writer is not restricted to a certain group of people.

  Last but most definitely not least, a massive thank you to Miss S (I hear she's a Mrs these days...). Although she was only formally my teacher for two terms when I was in Year 11, she still helped me out informally in her spare time during my A Levels, a true testament to how great teachers really go above and beyond for their students. She also totally changed the way I viewed many things by introducing me to ideas on feminism and postcolonialism. Furthermore, she inspired me to think outside the box and not be complacent with work, in order to be able to keep improving with work.

  I'm still in contact with all of these teachers and although I've said it many times in the past, this post reaffirms how thankful I am to them for all that they have done for me. I wouldn't be where I am today without them.